Kudos to Charles Witek for expressing what makes striped bass so special and why those of us who get it have to take action to protect them from those who don’t.
Anyone who fishes the northeast coast knows that striped bass are special.
Striped bass have an aura that sets them apart from the pack. They inhabit every type of inshore waters, from the high surf to deep-water ledges to tidal rivers yet, at times, can be nearly impossible to find. They’ll eat everything from sand fleas to weakfish, but sometimes turn up their nose at our lures at the same time that seem to be blitzing on every fish in the sea. They force us to fish at hours when other people sleep, in weather that keeps sane folks indoors, if we want to earn any real and consistent success along the striper coast.
For many anglers, they have achieved a sort of heroic status, a status that was only enhanced when, like the heroes of myth, they had their own symbolic descent into Hell in the late 1970s, when the stock collapsed and some people questioned whether it would ever rebound again. But thanks to strict management measures, they returned to our seas in abundance, giving some fishermen a new understanding about why conservation is vital not only for the good for the bass, but for themselves.
Some people get that, some people don’t.
LINK (via: One Angler’s Voyage)
Interesting site.
Fantastic piece and so true. Witek nailed it. Thanks for posting.